Hearing: Behind the Scenes - Public Engagement Event
6th April 2023
Muzna Shehzad and Alexina Whitley
This year we had the honour of hosting the first of its kind ‘Hearing: Behind the Scenes’ public engagement event at the Hearing Sciences Scottish Section. It was not only a great opportunity for members of our lab to share the ‘behind the scenes’ of hearing research, but also a chance to recognize the valuable contributions of the very core of our research, our participants. We had a fantastic day filled with talks, photography and an exciting activity where we flipped the switch, inviting the audience to think like a researcher. This was the first session, and we hope to continue these events in the future.
Dr Graham Naylor (Lab Director) giving introductory remarks
Talks
We started the day off with a presentation by members of the HS-PrediCt team,
Dr Jared Carter & Alexina Whitley, who discussed ongoing work using exciting techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and electroencephalography (EEG). We heard about how these can be used to explore the brain’s internal processes that are essential to everyday conversation and how this research can assist in our understanding of hearing loss. This was followed by a talk from our lab’s Medical Research Foundation Fellow,
Dr Jack Holman, who presented his work understanding the influence of hearing loss and hearing aid use on well-being.
It was very interesting to hear all the researchers explain their work and where we are in their thoughts
Dr Jack Holman (Research Fellow) presenting
Two final talks were delivered by the brilliant PhD students, Raluca Nicoras and Janin Benecke. Raluca talked about her research exploring conversation success. She invited us to view her recent experiment and get a taste for ourselves of the challenge of judging conversation success. Janin shared her work in improving hearing aid self-adjustment. A topic that sparked many questions and was found fascinating by attendees.
Think like a scientist: Designing a research study!
Interacting with researchers and participants with hearing issues was amazing and most interesting and valuable experience
But we didn’t just talk, we also wanted to hear from our participants! We invited our audience to join us in an exciting choose-your-own adventure style activity, led by the brilliant Dr Bill Whitmer. We wanted to give our participants a taste of what it’s like to be a researcher and share in the process of designing a study. Thanks to our wonderful audience for their contributions, we had many ideas to explore, ranging from early detection of hearing loss to exploring the perception of speech with and without visual cues. The audience members got to cast their votes, and ultimately chose a study looking at differentiating mixtures of sounds.
Together, we brainstormed ways to investigate the topic. Should we conduct experiments in the lab, or gather data from the real world by asking people with hearing loss about their experience? Our participants came up with some exciting possibilities. Finally, it was time to give our study a name. There were many creative suggestions, but in the end, we voted on "Unfankle it: A Study on Differentiating Sounds." It was a truly collaborative and engaging experience that we hope to replicate in future events while taking the ideas and input as inspiration for future work.
Audience voting on study ideas using voting cards
How do you see your hearing? - Photography Display
Before the event we asked attendees to submit photos that showed how do they see their hearing. The photography was accompanied by insightful descriptions and enjoyed by attendees during the refreshment break. It was inspiring to see peoples' unique perspectives on what hearing means to them and get a glimpse into how others experience hearing.
Attendees enjoying the photography display during refreshments
The event wrapped up with the screening of a video – a thank you message from all the staff, within the hearing sciences lab, to our participants who make all our research possible. We also thank everyone who was involved in making this event a success, particularly HS-PrediCt team member Muzna Shehzad for her efforts in organizing the event. The rich discussions, the study designed together, and the wonderful photography submissions made this an invaluable experience for everyone involved!
We look forward to our next public engagement event!
100% stated 'yes' when asked if they found the event useful!
Thank you card for the participants incorporating their photography submissions